A few days ago my old buddy Vince told me that his new game Tree World is out now in Australia (which I gather means it is out almost everywhere else too)! For all you apple I-device enthusiasts should check it out. That's the 3rd one out now from his company "The Playforge" (the first two being zombie farm and zombie life). At least one of us is doing something productive! :P
Also released recently is the Wing Commander Saga, which is the result of 10 years of hard work from loyal fans. My brother has downloaded it and from what I can see it's pretty close to the original series. It will be even more interesting once they have the co-op multiplayer side to it working. Apart from those I've recently been looking into the world of mods to reignite the *spark* in some of my previously won favourite games. I'll have to post more about that later on when I actually do it though, because currently I'm still in my saving Shadowcove mode. It seems my efforts from my last post have not been in vain (not yet anyway).
In between all that ofcourse I am still preparing for my own wedding! While searching for songs to play during the reception I did come across a few interesting and strange songs but this silly Eminem remix is really growing on me. The facial expressions on all the backup dudes is great, as is Marshall's reaction when the cat runs across the stage.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
UO running out of HP?
I've recently been pulled back into the world of Ultima Online, and I must say from what I've seen and from what I hear it is in a sorry state of affairs. The birth and death of free shards has always been a common occurence ever since we began our adventures in UO many years ago. These days though it seems that the timespan between those two events is much shorter and even (what I thought were) the "stronger" shards seem to now be dying. From what I've heard, the same is true for the paid OSI shards, although they mostly are still standing simply because they had more HP (players) to start with than the rest (please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not usually the type to save anything. I don't save the whales, the trees, the children, the environment, electricity, and the like but I am willing to try save one of these shards.
Often such a fate is completely out of my hands but this time I actually think I can save the damned thing. Or at the minimum, prolong its existence till someone comes along that can save it. Who knows, maybe -you- are that someone. Why not find out if you can make a difference before it's too late and join here - "Shadowcove: Prophecy". It's free to play and all the software is provided.
As a bonus, I'll even throw in links to some cool stuff such as The DragonBorn Comes (again), Ruin, and Snow White and the Huntsman. Is it wrong for me to look forward to that movie? It looks like just my sort of thing. :)
As a bonus, I'll even throw in links to some cool stuff such as The DragonBorn Comes (again), Ruin, and Snow White and the Huntsman. Is it wrong for me to look forward to that movie? It looks like just my sort of thing. :)
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
The leadership of Rick Grimes
Hey all! It's been quiet on here recently hasn't it? I am still alive and kicking and outside all the marraige prep stuff have been busy catching up on episodes of Supernatural (Castiel is awesome) and keeping pretty much upto date with The Walking Dead on which I wanted to share some thoughts. Obviously if you aren't up to speed you may want to zone out right now as there will be spoilers up ahead!
You'd better run!
So it's almost the end of season 2 and the rag tag band of survivors still finds itself led by Rick Grimes - a father, a husband and a generally nice guy. The only problem is good guys don't always make good leaders. I'll forgive him for his mistakes in season 1 as he was still new with the whole zombie thing (dropped gun bag in panic at first horde), and some things were really just out of his control (T-dog dropping keys, suicidal CDC survivor). I'm just surprised they let him be in charge though since Shane was doing a decent job of running the show till he showed up.
His lack in the skill department also may have contributed to this. For example, when he and Sophia are being chased by two walkers and he is unable to use his gun - he has to go run off somewhere to take them on one at a time. Had my favourite crossbow weilding hick been the one running the kid down instead of helping the unfortunate clutz T-dog, I'm sure he would have offed them both no problems. Hell, he did just that in a later episode where he is severely wounded, high on shrooms and starts off unconscious just to give the zombies a chance! There's even a specific part where someone says "I don't think anyone would have done different" to the girl's mom Carol and there's a shot a Daryl's face where he says nothing for Carol's sake but you can see in his eyes that he wouldn't have stuffed it up. Due to Rick's failure, the girl went missing and so began the long and ardous search phase which in the end Rick didn't help out much with anyway. This was ultimately solved by "bad guy" Shane, albeit accidentally.
Issue #2. A leader needs to be in control of his people. True, this is harder when you have hard headed idiots who don't listen to instructions (*cough* Andrea & Carl *cough*) but seriously - you let your own child wander around on his own into the swamp and don't even frigging notice? If you can't keep tabs on your own kid during a zombie apocalypse, I certainly don't think you should be trying to lead a whole group of people. Shane seemed to give more guidance to the kid than his own father did.
Issue #3: A leader shouldn't be inconsistent. Good old Rick though, finds some scum bags whom he doesn't trust and in perhaps his most awesome form this season blows them both away. Nice. Then suddenly after a twist of events he decides to save another scum bag who was just moments ago shooting at him and his friends? WTF. I would understand if he was doing a Jack Bauer (ie save him for torture) but his ultimate reasoning was the dude was young and should be let go, despite the real threat that he could go get his heavily armed buddies and come back for vengeance? Stupid. I swear sometimes he thinks he's Eddard Stark. Fortunately for him this problem was again solved by Shane, the only one with the balls to do what needed to be done.
It's a pretty big flaw for a leader who can't lead properly, but that also gives him room for improvement. I suspect he'll need to work on that really quickly now that his best buddy is double dead.
So it's almost the end of season 2 and the rag tag band of survivors still finds itself led by Rick Grimes - a father, a husband and a generally nice guy. The only problem is good guys don't always make good leaders. I'll forgive him for his mistakes in season 1 as he was still new with the whole zombie thing (dropped gun bag in panic at first horde), and some things were really just out of his control (T-dog dropping keys, suicidal CDC survivor). I'm just surprised they let him be in charge though since Shane was doing a decent job of running the show till he showed up.
His lack in the skill department also may have contributed to this. For example, when he and Sophia are being chased by two walkers and he is unable to use his gun - he has to go run off somewhere to take them on one at a time. Had my favourite crossbow weilding hick been the one running the kid down instead of helping the unfortunate clutz T-dog, I'm sure he would have offed them both no problems. Hell, he did just that in a later episode where he is severely wounded, high on shrooms and starts off unconscious just to give the zombies a chance! There's even a specific part where someone says "I don't think anyone would have done different" to the girl's mom Carol and there's a shot a Daryl's face where he says nothing for Carol's sake but you can see in his eyes that he wouldn't have stuffed it up. Due to Rick's failure, the girl went missing and so began the long and ardous search phase which in the end Rick didn't help out much with anyway. This was ultimately solved by "bad guy" Shane, albeit accidentally.
Issue #2. A leader needs to be in control of his people. True, this is harder when you have hard headed idiots who don't listen to instructions (*cough* Andrea & Carl *cough*) but seriously - you let your own child wander around on his own into the swamp and don't even frigging notice? If you can't keep tabs on your own kid during a zombie apocalypse, I certainly don't think you should be trying to lead a whole group of people. Shane seemed to give more guidance to the kid than his own father did.
Issue #3: A leader shouldn't be inconsistent. Good old Rick though, finds some scum bags whom he doesn't trust and in perhaps his most awesome form this season blows them both away. Nice. Then suddenly after a twist of events he decides to save another scum bag who was just moments ago shooting at him and his friends? WTF. I would understand if he was doing a Jack Bauer (ie save him for torture) but his ultimate reasoning was the dude was young and should be let go, despite the real threat that he could go get his heavily armed buddies and come back for vengeance? Stupid. I swear sometimes he thinks he's Eddard Stark. Fortunately for him this problem was again solved by Shane, the only one with the balls to do what needed to be done.
It's a pretty big flaw for a leader who can't lead properly, but that also gives him room for improvement. I suspect he'll need to work on that really quickly now that his best buddy is double dead.
Monday, 27 February 2012
Final Fun Run
Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!
We were next tasked to escort the bastard chief Ope to someone who was infected but not yet zombified and he led us on a merry trek through the zombie infested jungle, often putting himself in harm's way just so we could fail the mission. We still managed to keep the bastard alive through to his ancestral tomb where finally he is ended via cutscene in a method I wanted to do when I first met him. Oh well, now we have some jungle girl who fits the bill. After the long run BACK through the zombie forest we leave her with Umbrella Corp for tests (yeeeeah that's a good idea) while we go off to gather some stuff to upgrade the barge. It's a nice trip through memory lane passing through all the previous areas again.
Once ready we return to Umbrella Corp to get the vaccine (that's why we left the chick there), alas the doctors are pretty stupid as they pressed the wrong button and unleashed upon themselves a whole slew of zombies. With all of them turned into undead turds we take the jungle chick, the naive chick, and the lying bastard of a guide (whose lies led us to a whole area we didn't ever need to get to) all the way to the "final stage" prison. There's a surprising amount of survivors here, all hardened crooks "ruled" by a tattoo covered dude. A few more quests to go around in here, going from cell block to cell block and it is great fun as the baddies, both living and dead, are wearing body armor. Still not threatening at all apart from the respawning rams, but more fun to whack around.
The game needed more of this, which doesn't even happen. Ever.
Events lead to almost everyone getting eaten (due to their own stupidity) so we high tail it to the roof to meet "the voice". Its a trap! He gassed us and stole the antidote. Erm, next time kill your victims moron. So our little party fights our way to the roof, making sure to clear EVERY zombie in the way just for the heck of it. Even the ones faaaaar off the quest path. Voice man has some decent shooters, but not as good as me. Even here in the final battle two pistol headshots kills em. A sudden zombie rush pushes us back momentarily before we break through to the helipad where Voice man, surrounded by SEVEN people in the cutscene, still manages to kill the naive girl before transforming into final boss. Obviously he was surrounded by seven STUPID people.
We laughed in the face of this final opponent as all he could do was run a little, fall over, then beg for mercy as DL raged his knives into him, Jim blasted him with his guns, and I smashed his face with my sledgehammer. In under 15 seconds this moron was dead. We then took his chopper and escaped the infected island, leaving everyone there to their fate. Way to go heroes! Still - for all the bugs, easiness, too many workbenches, and lack of logic on some characters parts, this pretty game let my brothers and I spend more time together which is always a big plus in my book.
And so our adventures here have come to a close, who knows where our travels will take us next? :)
We were next tasked to escort the bastard chief Ope to someone who was infected but not yet zombified and he led us on a merry trek through the zombie infested jungle, often putting himself in harm's way just so we could fail the mission. We still managed to keep the bastard alive through to his ancestral tomb where finally he is ended via cutscene in a method I wanted to do when I first met him. Oh well, now we have some jungle girl who fits the bill. After the long run BACK through the zombie forest we leave her with Umbrella Corp for tests (yeeeeah that's a good idea) while we go off to gather some stuff to upgrade the barge. It's a nice trip through memory lane passing through all the previous areas again.
Once ready we return to Umbrella Corp to get the vaccine (that's why we left the chick there), alas the doctors are pretty stupid as they pressed the wrong button and unleashed upon themselves a whole slew of zombies. With all of them turned into undead turds we take the jungle chick, the naive chick, and the lying bastard of a guide (whose lies led us to a whole area we didn't ever need to get to) all the way to the "final stage" prison. There's a surprising amount of survivors here, all hardened crooks "ruled" by a tattoo covered dude. A few more quests to go around in here, going from cell block to cell block and it is great fun as the baddies, both living and dead, are wearing body armor. Still not threatening at all apart from the respawning rams, but more fun to whack around.
Events lead to almost everyone getting eaten (due to their own stupidity) so we high tail it to the roof to meet "the voice". Its a trap! He gassed us and stole the antidote. Erm, next time kill your victims moron. So our little party fights our way to the roof, making sure to clear EVERY zombie in the way just for the heck of it. Even the ones faaaaar off the quest path. Voice man has some decent shooters, but not as good as me. Even here in the final battle two pistol headshots kills em. A sudden zombie rush pushes us back momentarily before we break through to the helipad where Voice man, surrounded by SEVEN people in the cutscene, still manages to kill the naive girl before transforming into final boss. Obviously he was surrounded by seven STUPID people.
We laughed in the face of this final opponent as all he could do was run a little, fall over, then beg for mercy as DL raged his knives into him, Jim blasted him with his guns, and I smashed his face with my sledgehammer. In under 15 seconds this moron was dead. We then took his chopper and escaped the infected island, leaving everyone there to their fate. Way to go heroes! Still - for all the bugs, easiness, too many workbenches, and lack of logic on some characters parts, this pretty game let my brothers and I spend more time together which is always a big plus in my book.
And so our adventures here have come to a close, who knows where our travels will take us next? :)
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
The Evil Tribe
Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!
As I thought, we respawned in the middle of the guerrila camp but the enemies were too stupid to take advantage of the situation. It wasn't long before we wiped them all out including Afran himself. Once we got his boat we found ourselves a guide to take us closer to the prison. He didn't know a direct route so instead brought us to a laboratory that supposedly connects to it somehow. Inside we found another group of survivors and a doctor who seemed interested in finding out answers to the zombie plague, while still pretending that the whole facility is only dedicated to pharmaceutical/cosmetic research. Yeah right doc. What's this place called anyway?
That would be my guess!
The few side quests here are actually fun as the number of zombies is quite high. Interestingly enough it looks like the exploder type phased themselves out (possibly exploded their strain into oblivion?) as we haven't encountered one since the city. After being told that there are natives in the region who may have the answer to this whole mess we went to their village and were greeted with arena style combat against their "best warriors". Their best warriors who are zombies? Okey dokey...
After killing what I'd assume to be most of their tribe one of them had the gall to ask for some plant that will keep them from mutating. I told him to piss off. If you wanted our help, you shouldn't have tried to kill us yeah? Seriously they are lucky that the game has them as invincible, because I did try whack each of them on our way out. Morons like them don't deserve to exist.
As I thought, we respawned in the middle of the guerrila camp but the enemies were too stupid to take advantage of the situation. It wasn't long before we wiped them all out including Afran himself. Once we got his boat we found ourselves a guide to take us closer to the prison. He didn't know a direct route so instead brought us to a laboratory that supposedly connects to it somehow. Inside we found another group of survivors and a doctor who seemed interested in finding out answers to the zombie plague, while still pretending that the whole facility is only dedicated to pharmaceutical/cosmetic research. Yeah right doc. What's this place called anyway?
The few side quests here are actually fun as the number of zombies is quite high. Interestingly enough it looks like the exploder type phased themselves out (possibly exploded their strain into oblivion?) as we haven't encountered one since the city. After being told that there are natives in the region who may have the answer to this whole mess we went to their village and were greeted with arena style combat against their "best warriors". Their best warriors who are zombies? Okey dokey...
After killing what I'd assume to be most of their tribe one of them had the gall to ask for some plant that will keep them from mutating. I told him to piss off. If you wanted our help, you shouldn't have tried to kill us yeah? Seriously they are lucky that the game has them as invincible, because I did try whack each of them on our way out. Morons like them don't deserve to exist.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Jungle Party
Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!
Back in the Jungle (again) we start off with a long and annoying escort mission deep into the woods, and just like all the previous ones the person we are protecting is an idiot - running ahead all the time regardless of the enemies on the path. This area is huge and there are side quests aplenty for us to chase which involves many, many crashes. From experience I believe the best way to avoid this is to stay together (within 25m), never sprint too far, avoid using cars and avoid spinning fast. Its kinda restrictive, but it gives a bit of insight on how the Ram zombies came to be.
They are obviously infected multiplayer characters.
There are less zombies here than in the city, though they throw in another type - some butcher thing that's supposed to be scary but is really just another stupid waste of space, so it is quite safe. Seriously, I just punch them to death - that's how useless they are. The jungle itself with it's winding paths and invisible walls proves to be a more devious foe, especially when combined with network drop outs. There are also a lot of non-zombie hostiles, all of whom do not know how to take cover properly or shoot straight which makes them easy pickings for a team of experienced fps players.
Of note is a heavily infested ghost town (the only place so far where there are enough running zombies to be semi-threatening) which we kept going through on a quest to get a russian satellite phone due to bad quest pathing. This took us the longest to complete having to explore quite a bit before locating an alternate route to the bunker. Also we found Friday the 13th's Jason who was a fun easter egg to take down (twice), especially now that I have his chainsaw (x2). Still doesn't beat my magic wand modded Gabriel's Hammer from Mother Hen - it sends the bad guys flying! Jim and I have finally begun to run low on cash too. About frigging time, but I suspect a raid into the city will fix that up really quick.
Anyway our next task is to get a boat from Afran, the leader of the local thugs. We were deep in his camp when he unleashed his secret weapon: Overheating DL's machine. Due to the late hour we had to call it quits there, and given the last checkpoint was in his camp I expect all his dudes will be respawned and surrounding us when we log in again. Maybe they'll actually manage to hit us this time?
Back in the Jungle (again) we start off with a long and annoying escort mission deep into the woods, and just like all the previous ones the person we are protecting is an idiot - running ahead all the time regardless of the enemies on the path. This area is huge and there are side quests aplenty for us to chase which involves many, many crashes. From experience I believe the best way to avoid this is to stay together (within 25m), never sprint too far, avoid using cars and avoid spinning fast. Its kinda restrictive, but it gives a bit of insight on how the Ram zombies came to be.
There are less zombies here than in the city, though they throw in another type - some butcher thing that's supposed to be scary but is really just another stupid waste of space, so it is quite safe. Seriously, I just punch them to death - that's how useless they are. The jungle itself with it's winding paths and invisible walls proves to be a more devious foe, especially when combined with network drop outs. There are also a lot of non-zombie hostiles, all of whom do not know how to take cover properly or shoot straight which makes them easy pickings for a team of experienced fps players.
Of note is a heavily infested ghost town (the only place so far where there are enough running zombies to be semi-threatening) which we kept going through on a quest to get a russian satellite phone due to bad quest pathing. This took us the longest to complete having to explore quite a bit before locating an alternate route to the bunker. Also we found Friday the 13th's Jason who was a fun easter egg to take down (twice), especially now that I have his chainsaw (x2). Still doesn't beat my magic wand modded Gabriel's Hammer from Mother Hen - it sends the bad guys flying! Jim and I have finally begun to run low on cash too. About frigging time, but I suspect a raid into the city will fix that up really quick.
Anyway our next task is to get a boat from Afran, the leader of the local thugs. We were deep in his camp when he unleashed his secret weapon: Overheating DL's machine. Due to the late hour we had to call it quits there, and given the last checkpoint was in his camp I expect all his dudes will be respawned and surrounding us when we log in again. Maybe they'll actually manage to hit us this time?
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Over, Under and Out
Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!
Our next task was to get all the speakers in the city working to broadcast the message of Mother Hen at the church to try get all the scattered survivors together. A very worthwhile venture in my opinion, so the three of us headed up to the rooftops to repair all the busted systems. The zombies certainly began coming out en masse at this point, especially in the "containment zone" (it obviously didn't do its job too well huh?). Rams galore have begun to turn up as well, and seem to be the only thing so far that is a threat to the party. Endless waves of sprinting infected come a close second.
Just like that "other" zombie game.
After a few other menial tasks we were sent to go get supplies from the rich district which was only accessible through the sewers. Ironically, the sewers are cleaner than the streets above. Not too far in we were introduced to Dead Island's version of the Boomer. The slow tubby isn't very dangerous though.
We emerged at the town hall smelling kinda foul, but nowhere near as putrid as the scum taking refuge there who plainly refused to help us. At least one fella sent us through a secret way (sewers) to a supermarket held by some gangsters though, and we were more than happy to break in there and kill all of them. I lost sync somewhere here and had to redo a whole bunch of things solo, but it seems the number of enemies and their HP is adjusted to supposedly balance it. I would have prefered the numbers we fought through the first time though as my individual run lent on the boring side.
Anyway, with plenty of supplies now as well as a good amount of ammo we returned to the city proper back through the overrun town hall (they had it coming) where we discover our naive helper friend decided to try supply the goons in the police station and were promptly tasked with saving her using a secret passage (aka sewers).
Jim was overjoyed as we got in and murdered the whole bloody lot of them and took their stuff for ourselves, then it was back to the greatly reduced group of Cinnamon who decided to help us get in contact with the mysterious radio man we heard at the beginning of the game. I believe it was also a good ploy to get the heroes out of his hair so he could continue his murderous rampage. It would be great if he is actually the main bad guy.
Our next task was to get all the speakers in the city working to broadcast the message of Mother Hen at the church to try get all the scattered survivors together. A very worthwhile venture in my opinion, so the three of us headed up to the rooftops to repair all the busted systems. The zombies certainly began coming out en masse at this point, especially in the "containment zone" (it obviously didn't do its job too well huh?). Rams galore have begun to turn up as well, and seem to be the only thing so far that is a threat to the party. Endless waves of sprinting infected come a close second.
After a few other menial tasks we were sent to go get supplies from the rich district which was only accessible through the sewers. Ironically, the sewers are cleaner than the streets above. Not too far in we were introduced to Dead Island's version of the Boomer. The slow tubby isn't very dangerous though.
We emerged at the town hall smelling kinda foul, but nowhere near as putrid as the scum taking refuge there who plainly refused to help us. At least one fella sent us through a secret way (sewers) to a supermarket held by some gangsters though, and we were more than happy to break in there and kill all of them. I lost sync somewhere here and had to redo a whole bunch of things solo, but it seems the number of enemies and their HP is adjusted to supposedly balance it. I would have prefered the numbers we fought through the first time though as my individual run lent on the boring side.
Anyway, with plenty of supplies now as well as a good amount of ammo we returned to the city proper back through the overrun town hall (they had it coming) where we discover our naive helper friend decided to try supply the goons in the police station and were promptly tasked with saving her using a secret passage (aka sewers).
Jim was overjoyed as we got in and murdered the whole bloody lot of them and took their stuff for ourselves, then it was back to the greatly reduced group of Cinnamon who decided to help us get in contact with the mysterious radio man we heard at the beginning of the game. I believe it was also a good ploy to get the heroes out of his hair so he could continue his murderous rampage. It would be great if he is actually the main bad guy.
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